]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22862013-02-13T18:06:58Z2013-02-13T18:06:58Zhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/tarsandsaction/sets/72157632761399084/
February 13, 2013
Contacts:
Eddie Scher, Sierra Club, 415-815-7027
Maggie Kao, Sierra Club, 202-675-2384
Daniel Kessler, 350.org, 510-501-1779
JULIAN BOND, BILL MCKIBBEN, MICHAEL BRUNE, AND OTHERS ARRESTED IN FRONT OF WHITE HOUSE IN CALL FOR ACTION ON CLIMATE
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This morning, 48 environmental, civil rights, and community leaders from across the country joined together for a historic display of civil disobedience at the White House where they demanded that President Obama deny the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and address the climate crisis.
Among the notable leaders involved in the civil disobedience were Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club; Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org; Julian Bond, former president of the NAACP; Danny Kennedy, CEO of Sungevity; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Connor Kennedy, and Daryl Hannah, American actress.
After blocking a main thoroughfare in front of the White House, and refusing to move when asked by police, the activists were arrested and transported to Anacostia for processing by the US Park Police Department.
“The threat to our planet’s climate is both grave and urgent,” said civil rights activist Julian Bond. “Although President Obama has declared his own determination to act, much that is within his power to accomplish remains undone, and the decision to allow the construction of a pipeline to carry millions of barrels of the most-polluting oil on Earth from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. is in his hands. I am proud today to stand before my fellow citizens and declare, ‘I am willing to go to jail to stop this wrong.’ The environmental crisis we face today demands nothing less.”
“We really shouldn’t have to be put in handcuffs to stop KXL–our nation’s leading climate scientists have told us it’s dangerous folly, and all the recent Nobel Peace laureates have urged us to set a different kind of example for the world, so the choice should be obvious,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben. “But given the amount of money on the other side, we’ve had to spend our bodies, and we’ll probably have to spend them again.”
“For the first time in the Sierra Club’s 120-year history, we have joined the ranks of visionaries of the past and present to engage in civil disobedience, knowing that the issue at hand is so critical, it compels the strongest defensible action,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “We cannot afford to allow the production, transport, export and burning of the dirtiest oil on Earth via the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama must deny the pipeline and take decisive steps to address climate disruption, the most significant issue of our time.”
If approved, the Keystone XL pipeline would boost carbon pollution tomorrow by triggering a boom of growth in the tar sands industry in Canada, and greatly increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that this tar sands pipeline will boost annual U.S. carbon pollution emissions by up to 27.6 million metric tons – the impact of adding nearly 6 million cars on the road.
However, new research by Oil Change International (OCI) shows that the government’s estimates of the carbon emissions associated with Keystone XL underestimates the full impact of tar sands because a barrel of tar sands produces significantly more petroleum coke than conventional crude, which is more carbon-intensive than coal. The research can be found at: http://priceofoil.org/2013/01/17/petroleum-coke-the-coal-hiding-in-the-tar-sands/.
OCI’s research shows that Keystone XL will produce enough petcoke to fuel five U.S. coal plants. The emissions from this petcoke have not yet been included in climate-impact analysis of the pipeline or the tar sands industry and OCI shows that it will raise total emissions by at least 13 percent.
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For more information, including bios, photos and video, visit www.tarsandsaction.org.
Participants in the action will be taken to the Anacostia US Park Police Station: 1901 Anacostia Drive SE, Washington, D. C. 20020]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22772013-02-13T12:17:48Z2013-02-13T12:17:48Z**Wednesday, February 13 at 10:45 AM ET**

What: Fifty American leaders–including Michael Brune (Sierra Club), Bill McKibben (350.org), Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr. (Hip Hop Caucus), civil rights legend Julian Bond, actress Daryl Hannah, Nebraska rancher Randy Thompson and others on the frontlines of climate change–will risk arrest in front of the White House to demonstrate the depth of their support for decisive action against climate change. For the first time in its 120-year history, the Sierra Club will participate in this civil disobedience action to convey the severity and urgency of action on climate.
Where and when:
10:30AM Media availability in Lafayette park for those risking arrest.
11:00AM Activists and supporters will gather in Lafayette park for photos and speeches.
11:30AM The civil disobedience will take place around at the East Gate of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, just east of the picture-postcard zone.
Why: 2012 was the hottest year on record, half the country is in severe drought, and Superstorm Sandy just flooded the greatest city in the world–New York. A global crisis unfolds before our eyes and immediate action is required. President Obama has the executive authority to make a significant and immediate impact on carbon pollution, and he can begin by saying no to Big Oil by rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
Civil disobedience is the response of ordinary people to extraordinary injustices. Americans have righted the wrongs of our society – slavery, child labor, suffrage, segregation, and inequality for gays and immigrant workers – with creative nonviolent resistance. Climate change threatens the health and security of all Americans, and action proportional to the problem is required–now.

The full list of participants, along with photos and bios, is available at tarsandsaction.org.

The participants risking arrest have released the following letter to explain their collective action.
“We’re here today to show the depth of our resolve that President Obama take immediate, decisive action against climate change—to show that if the president leads, the vast majority of Americans will rally behind him. We’re not here today to protest the president, we are here to encourage and support him. We lived through horrors of Superstorm Sandy, the Midwest drought, wildfires, and the hottest year on record: we know in our bones that the time has come to do more than we have, and all that we can.
“The president can’t work miracles by himself. An obstructionist Congress stands in the way of progress and innovation. But President Obama has the executive authority and the mandate from the American people to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, and to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline right now.
“And we’re here to show something else—that the movement for a clean energy revolution is a broad and powerful one. In 2011 we were moved by the 1,253 Americans who went jail to protest Keystone in the biggest civil disobedience action in many years in this country. Today we are 50 people at the White House representing millions of Americans in every state, in every community. Today we risk arrest because a global crisis unfolds before our eyes. We have the solutions to this climate crisis. We have a moral obligation to stand stand for immediate, bold action to solve climate disruption. We can do it, and we will.”]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22202012-11-07T20:32:05Z2012-11-07T20:32:05ZNov. 6, 2012
Environmentalists Announce New Keystone XL Demonstration at the White House on November 18
Oakland — In the wake of President Barack Obama’s re-election, environmentalists today called for a demonstration outside the White House on Nov. 18 to show the president that he has their support if he denies the permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
The demonstration will follow 350.org’s “Do the Math” event at the Warner Theatre and will feature thousands of activists, a 500-foot pipeline, and several speakers–including Bill McKibben, who led the Keystone XL protests last summer in which 1,252 people were arrested.
The full letter is below.
CONTACT: Daniel Kessler, 350.org, 510-501-1779, daniel@350.org
Dear friends—
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as the warmest year in American history draws to a close, as the disastrous drought lingers on in the Midwest, everyone is looking for ways to make a real difference in the fight to slow climate change. We’d like to ask you to come once more to Washington, to resume the battle to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, mid-afternoon on Nov. 18th.
This summer President Obama took the biggest step of any president to date when he raised fuel efficiency standards — a move that will cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 10% when fully implemented. Many of you worked to make this happen. Thank you. It’s an important step in the right direction. Let’s take a few more.
As you’ll recall, your efforts last year slowed down the decision, giving the State Department more time to consider the impacts of a dangerous export pipeline that will transport one of the world’s dirtiest, most carbon-intensive fuels. Although they did go ahead with the southern segment, where many of our colleagues are waging a remarkable fight against its construction. But now that the election is over a decision by the President is imminent—the administration has hinted a decision could come in the first quarter of 2013.
Here’s what’s changed since last year: the Arctic has melted disastrously.
Here’s what hasn’t changed: Keystone XL is still a crazy idea, a giant straw into the second biggest pool of carbon. Even if it doesn’t spill, it would add 900,000 barrels of oil worth of carbon each day to the earth’s atmosphere, or as much as the new auto efficiency regulations would save. It would, in other words, cancel out the whole long fight to increase auto mileage. Those tar sands are still the dirtiest energy on the planet.
And more and more people are realizing it. Our brothers and sisters in Canada have effectively blocked the so-called Gateway Pipeline to Canada’s west coast. It won’t be built anytime soon, depriving the administration of their only halfway decent argument—that the oil would just go somewhere else. No, Barack Obama is now even more the man who holds the fate of the tar sands expansion in his hands.
No one needs to get arrested this time—though that may come as the winter wears on. For now we simply need to let the President know we haven’t forgotten, and that our conviction hasn’t cooled. Please be there if you possibly can.
Many thanks,
Michael Brune, Sierra Club
Naomi Klein, author
James Hansen, NASA
Tzeporah Berman, author
Jane Kleeb, BOLD Nebraska
Michael Kieschnick, Credo Mobile
Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network
Gus Speth, author and professor of law, Vermont Law School
Maura Cowley, Energy Action Coalition
Rebecca Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network
Joe Uehlein, Labor Network for Sustainability
Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Michael Mann, Penn State University Earth System Science Center
Bill McKibben and May Boeve, 350.org
Stephen Kretzmann, Oil Change International
Bridge the Gulf Project
Tar Sands Blockade]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22142012-02-13T01:38:10Z2012-02-13T01:38:10ZView the story “24 Hours to Stop Keystone XL” on Storify]]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22052012-02-13T01:22:55Z2012-02-13T01:22:55ZView the story “24 Hours to Stop Keystone XL” on Storify]
]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=22032012-01-20T18:38:00Z2012-01-20T18:38:00ZBill McKibben just sent this email to 350.org supporters in the United States and Canada
Dear Friends
We wanted to share with you the news: this afternoon the Obama Administration announced that they are denying the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. You did good work, against some of the longest possible odds.
For years, the knock on the President Obama was that he backed down too easily in the face of opposition. Not here. When Republicans in Congress forced the issue again by passing a 60-day time limit on the President’s final decision, he stood strong and denied the permit. And that was despite the most explicit threats from Big Oil: that they would exact ‘huge political consequences’ if he did the right thing on Keystone. Make no mistake—this is a brave decision.
And make no mistake about this either—Big Oil will do everything it can to overturn that decision, because they are not used to losing. They have one weapon—money. They’ve used it to buy the allegiance of many Representatives and Senators and now they’ll use Congress to try and get their dirty work done. That’s what happened when the President delayed the permit last November, and we should expect them to try again now.
That’s why we’re going to Congress and Big Oil, beginning next Tuesday the 24th. If you can join us, we’re meeting at noon on the West Lawn, and you should wear a referee’s shirt. We’re going to ‘blow the whistle’ on the corruption that passes for business as usual on Capitol Hill, where people take money from companies whose interests they vote on. If this happened at the Super Bowl it would be a national scandal; we’ve got to make sure it’s seen that way in our political life too. We know it’s short notice, but we hope we can get at least 500 people there. Not to get arrested, at least not this time, but to make quite a noise.
If you can make it, click here to join the action in DC.
We’ll be fighting to prevent Keystone, but we’ll also be fighting to shut off the flow of handouts to the oil, gas, and coal industries, and to take away their right to use the atmosphere as an open sewer into which to dump their carbon for free. This industry, simply because it iss rich, has been cosseted too long. Time to fight back.
What you’ve done these past eight months is quite amazing—and against all the odds. We’ve won no permanent victory (environmentalists never do) but we have shown that spirited people can bring science back to the fore. Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming—but it is a real start, one of the first times in the two-decade fight over climate change when the fossil fuel lobby has actually lost.
Rest assured they’ll fight like heck—their world-record profits depend on it. We better fight just as hard, because the world depends on it.
-Bill
]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=21982012-01-18T17:25:15Z2012-01-18T17:25:15Z350.org founder and Keystone XL protest leader, Bill McKibben, had the following reaction the news that the State Department is expected to reject the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline later this afternoon. For more coverage of the announcement, please visit 350.org.
“Assuming that what we’re hearing is true, this isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he’s too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact ‘huge political consequences,’ he’s stood up strong. This is a victory for Americans who testified in record numbers, and who demanded that science get the hearing usually reserved for big money.
We’re well aware that the fossil fuel lobby won’t give up easily. They have control of Congress. But as the year goes on, we’ll try to break some of that hammerlock, both so that environmental review can go forward, and so that we can stop wasting taxpayer money on subsidies and handouts to the industry. The action starts mid-day Tuesday on Capitol Hill, when 500 referees will blow the whistle on Big Oil’s attempts to corrupt the Congress.”
]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=21782013-11-14T23:17:28Z2012-01-02T18:20:58ZEarly last summer when folks decided to take on the Keystone Pipeline, we set up tarsandsaction.org so we could have a broad front supported by many groups. Matt, Linda, Rae, Duncan and Josh came on board and got to work—those of you who came to DC to get arrested met them in person, and the rest of you have been in touch with them one way or another all fall.

Now the good news is that we’re going to try to keep them going—in fact, we’re bringing them aboard 350.org as our US Climate Action Team. They’ll still be working hard on tar sands but expanding their work to take on issues like fracking, and systematic change like ending fossil fuel subsidies and attacking the idea that corporations are people.
Since many of you belong to both tarsandsaction.org and 350.org, we know you’ve been getting duplicate emails, and that seems pointless.

From now on you’ll hear from the 350.org US Action Team (US because 350.org also exists in 188 other countries, where people are also hard at work!), and from the other good folks at 350 when important news breaks related to climate change.
We’re going to go ahead and add everyone here to the 350.org email list, where you’ll get critical updates from this team on ongoing organizing on Keystone XL and other similar issues.

We have the funding we need to get this moving, but to keep the Action Team in the field long term, we’ll need a bit more on hand. We don’t do a lot of asking for money at 350.org – we’d much rather you were out taking action yourself – but if you can pitch in to keep these folks going at it, I would be very grateful. Here’s where you can donate: act.350.org/donate/2011_1

Of course it’s been a tough year economically for many of us, so if you don’t have funds to spare, don’t even think about giving. There are plenty of ways to help out.
For me this is the very finest of Christmas presents. I’ve enjoyed working with these five actioneers enormously, and I’ve watched them fit in seamlessly with the young people who run 350.org. If we’re going to give the fossil fuel industry a run for their (limitless) money, we’re going to need to be a lean loving fighting machine.

This will help—but only if you’re a part of it.
I’m feeling entirely fired up about 2012. This time last year I had no idea that we’d be fighting Keystone together, or that I’d be spending time in jail, or any of it; I’m pretty sure the year to come will be just as exciting.
As always, I am quite grateful for all of the hard work you’re doing.

Bill
]]>0the tar sands action teamhttp://www.tarsandsaction.org/?p=21722011-12-24T14:48:39Z2011-12-24T14:48:39ZIn a news analysis published today, the New York Times concludes that while the tax bill provision on Keystone XL will likely kill the project, the victory will do little to stop future pipelines, stall tar sands development, or slow down global warming. After all, the world needs energy, the tar sands have it, and therefore, they’re going to be developed, atmosphere be damned.
It’s a compelling argument that’s been made over and over again during the fight against Keystone XL. Here’s why it’s wrong.
Time and again, public opposition has stopped things that made “economic” sense. That’s why ever mile of the Colorado river isn’t dammed, why we haven’t cut down every last inch of Brazilian rainforest, or, to pull from another time period, why the British Empire finally abolished the slave trade even though it was great economics. As it turns out, there are other forces in the world than supply and demand. Just because morality is hard to quantify, doesn’t mean it can’t change history now and then.
As political opposition to the tar sands grows, it’s going to be nearly impossible for oil companies to build the pipelines they need to get tar sands oil out of landlocked Alberta. You thought the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline was contentious? Just check out the struggle over the Enbridge Northern Gateway, a pipeline that was slated to be built from the tar sands out to the coast of British Columbia. Thanks to the opposition from indigenous communities along the entire pipeline route and people up and down the coast, the Canadian government has been forced to stall the project for yet another year of environmental review. The delay, along with the news on Keystone, has fired up the anti-tar sands movement even more. When Goliath teeters, David puts another stone in the sling-shot.
The pipeline victories also create the momentum necessary to push for the larger, structural changes that can really shut down the tar sands, like ending fossil fuel subsidies, rolling out a clean energy economy, and putting a price on carbon. In the United States, the fight against Keystone XL made tar sands a (dirty) household name for the first time. Over 500,000 people signed petitions against the pipeline, tens of thousands of people to part in demonstrations, and over 1,000 people were arrested over the course of the campaign. At places like 350.org, we’re busy brainstorming with supporters across the country about how to quickly get into these larger fights.
The New York Times is right: if it was let up to economics, tar sands development (and the planetary destruction that comes with it) would be inevitable. Good thing we’re not leaving it up to economics.]]>15